The parties began hectic negotiations at 6 p.m. Wednesday to reach some concrete agreements on the peace process before Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai leaves for India Thursday noon. [break]The prime minister has also called a meeting of the special committee for Thursday morning to take decisions on the peace process.
According to party leaders, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had "desperately" requested Nepali Congress (NC) and UML leaders to strike some deal on the issues of the peace process by Thursday morning.
"We should make some progress on the peace process before the prime minister embarks on his India visit," UML leader Surendra Pandey quoted Dahal as saying at the meeting held at the prime minister´s official residence at Baluwatar.
Top leaders of the three major parties - UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and UML -- formed a three-member taskforce comprising Maoist leader Barshaman Pun, NC leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula and UML leader Bhim Rawal to prepare a peace proposal and present it before a meeting of top leaders scheduled for Thursday morning.
Before holding a meeting of the top leaders, two leaders from each of the three parties would help the taskforce chart out the proposal.
The three parties had held separate bilateral meetings before holding a trilateral meeting again. The meeting was disrupted midway after Maoist Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya, who leads party hardliners, stated that the talks should not make headway as leaders of his faction had not been briefed about the peace agenda and were yet to reach consensus. The Maoists then held a separate meeting to persuade Baidya and CP Gajurel, another hardliner present at the meeting.
"The statement of Kiran [Baidya] did not disturb the conducive environment for talks. We held a separate meeting of the party and after that there was no objection to the talks from him," said Maoist Vice-chairman and Deputy Prime Minister Narayankaji Shrestha. He said he was optimistic that the talks would yield positive results. "But we had reached close to consensus on the peace process at various meetings in the past also. So we are not sure about the outcome," he said.
Talking to reporters, NC leader Ram Sharan Mahat said that the talks had been positive and the leaders expected to make some breakthrough by morning. But he did not divulge details.
At the meeting, Dahal had also proposed speeding up the constitution drafting task at the subcommittee formed under the CA´s Constitutional Committee and forming various commissions including Commission on Disappearance and Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The meeting saw participation by Prime Minister Bhattarai, Maoist Chairman Dahal, Vice-chairmen duo Baidya and Shrestha, NC President Sushil Koirala, Vice-president Ram Chandra Paudel, General Secretaries Krishna Sitaula and Prakashman Singh, and Chairman Jhalanath Khanal, Bhim Rawal, Surendra Pandey and Pradip Gyawali of UML.
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